


to love and be loved

by kokiri



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, For a Friend, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9304874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiri/pseuds/kokiri
Summary: the state of reality is altered when one steps foot in a supermarket at two in the morning.minghao and vernon meet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> emily.......... i'm so sorry this is terrible 8)))), but i hope you love it. i know birthdays are hard, but i'm glad you were born. i love you forever. 
> 
> context for anyone else who might feel weirdly confused at some of the references contained in this fic: i went to a southern baptist college where you had to attend chapel every week and there was literally nothing to do in the town because the school was the absolute center of it. it was very depressing. minghao and vernon meet under such circumstances. a few other fics of mine are about this verse. mingsol are the centerpiece. i am dead inside also.

Is it a blessing or a curse to have relocated to a town so small that it's just a ten minute walk to the supermarket from the dorm which Minghao must now unfortunately call home? He figures it's a blessing in some ways and a curse in others, like most things are. A blessing because he often finds himself craving (the emotional kind of craving) Lunchables if he stays up any later than midnight. He finds it a curse for a few different reasons. The grody old supermarket is so unsightly, resting right against the edge of the beautifully kept college campus. And walking to said supermarket at two in the morning is the only thing there is to do in this fucking town, as far as Minghao is concerned.

 

He figures it’s the only thing to do because he has done literally nothing else since he transferred to this school. Class, mandatory chapel services a couple times a week, and then walking to the store for Lunchables. Minghao also figures, when he has his weekly meeting with the counselor who quietly scribbles notes about him in her tiny notepad, it's not even worth mentioning that Minghao has never really been the greatest at making friends. And this hits him particularly hard at the crosswalk which connects the college to the supermarket. He is alone, it’s cold, and he has not made a single friend since the semester started.

 

Whatever. The fluorescent light which should say SMART SHOP is missing a few letters. It has been since the first time Minghao made a late night voyage. He wants to grab the owner by the shoulders and scream, _Don’t you fucking care? Is your brand not important to you? Does it not bother you to any degree that when people drive by your store at night, they think it’s called SM      OP? Smop!_   _For fuck's sake, man, have a bit of decency_!

 

But whatever sad sack owns the moldiest grocery store this side of the Mason-Dixon line probably doesn’t care about that. He probably makes enough to maintain his debt, send his kids to summer camp, and keep his car well-maintained. Isn’t that the point of being alive, anyway? Fuck. Minghao will probably never have that in his life. Why does he even bother?

 

It's cold. Some glassy-eyed kid from Minghao's mandatory liberal arts credit is staring at him from the one open register. They are the only living people on planet earth right now. Minghao gives the kid an awkward nod and beelines for the only aisle that matters. The aisle that contains anything and everything that is cold and for children and pretty unhealthy.

 

Minghao has his eyes on the prize. He grabs two (2) Lunchables.

 

“Hey. Those are the last pizzas. Do you really need two? Come on, what about me?”

 

Minghao looks up in horror. There is another person standing beside him. A person who he has never seen before, and who is talking to him, and who is demanding one of his pizza Lunchables. He's wearing a faded Carhartt jacket, hands stuffed firmly in the pockets and he doesn't look too happy to be alive right now.

 

“I guess if you really want one,” Minghao says. He offers the double-cheese, no pepperoni Lunchable to his new best friend.

 

“Thanks,” the guy says. He takes the Lunchable and shoves it in his jacket.

 

“Are you going to pay for that?” Minghao asks.

 

“I don't know?” the guy says. “Haven’t decided yet.”

 

"Are you… a student?"

 

The guy laughs. Minghao had no idea he had such untapped comedic potential. But this is no laughing matter. He should not ask a question about the school he has moved hours away from home to attend, and be met with laughter.

 

“Am I missing something fucking hilarious?” he asks, agitated.

 

“I mean… no?” the guys. “But still… kind of, yes.”

 

“So what you are,” Minghao says, because he wants to fight, “is a townie.”

 

“Yeah, I guess so,” the guy says. Minghao is reduced to a state of severe panic. This guy doesn't give a shit. There is a high likelihood that anything Minghao says from this point forward will be met with apathy or colossal unflappability.

 

“Like… you just live in a shitty town, next to a college, but you never went to the college, and you don't even have a degree.”

 

“Totally,” the guy says. “Flunked out of community college my first semester. Man, that sucked. Not that I flunked out. That I wasted a whole semester on community college. Hey. My name is Vernon. What about you?”

 

“Minghao…”

 

“Okay, _Minghao…_ ” Vernon says, emulating Minghao's slightly reserved, slightly disgusted tone to perfection. “What say you, and me, and these Lunchables, in my truck?”

 

Minghao wants to argue, because that is who Minghao is. But it's late, and he's hungry, and he doesn't have class tomorrow. He pulls the Lunchable out of Vernon's coat - someone's gotta pay for it - and gives him a resigned, mournful, “Sure.”

 

 

 

 

“You transferred here,” Vernon says. He's not asking for clarification. He's just saying it like it's the most unbelievable thing he's ever heard in his life. “To this little piece of shit town? You did that. Wow, Minghao.”  He sprinkles the daintiest bit of cheese on to his cold, cardboard pizza.

 

“They offered me this crazy scholarship. Like, I didn't even have to take out a single loan. My other school was just too expensive. I don't know! I didn't know it was a mistake at the time, obviously! And everyone here's like…” Minghao puts on his best backwoods accent, "Well, cousin, I've known you since I were knee high to a frog. I reckon we'll never leave this cesspool of nepotism and ennui, huh?"

 

Vernon laughs. Minghao thinks that's cool, that he can make Vernon laugh so easily. Neat.

 

“Yep,” he says.

 

He takes a bite of his pizza. Minghao's, meanwhile, is unopened. He finds the situation weird and a little too intimate. This Lunchable is for selfcare and healing, not to be shared with some weirdo he met at the grocery store at two in the morning.

 

“You're pretty funny,” Vernon says, pizza sauce on the corner of his mouth. Minghao reaches out and wipes it off with his thumb.

 

“You're, like… a baby,” he says.

 

“Haha. Yeah.”

 

And Minghao's wondering if this tally falls under blessing or curse.

 

 

 

 

If there's anything Minghao hates, it's a lot of things. But above all, at the very top of his list right now, would be the mandatory chapel services he is currently forced to attend at eight in the morning, every Tuesday. Once he actually manages to get out of bed and make himself presentable (pajamas are absolutely not allowed), it's a fairly painless endeavor. But it's the getting there that really fucking sucks.

 

Minghao, ascending the cracked, uneven stone stairs up to the church, thinks he must be dreaming as he when he sees a distinctly familiar faded Carhartt jacket jutting out from behind one of the stately pillar where no one in their right mind would be stupid enough to stand in this weather.

 

“Are you serious?” he asks.

 

Vernon looks over his shoulder. “Totally. I come to these all the time. I thought I may as well wait for you so I don't have to sit by myself.”

 

"You have a sickness? You are sick.”

 

“I do. I am. Absolutely. Let's go.”

 

The automated bell rings once, twice, three times to signify that everyone should be finding their seats. There's an empty pew towards the exit that Minghao always takes, today is no exception. Vernon squeezes in beside him like Minghao even actually knows who the fuck this guy really is. (It's not as if Vernon is technically Minghao's first and only friend in his place. That's silly. His mama always warned him about townies.)

 

Today's chapel service is about social justice and incorporating Godliness into your activism. Minghao really doesn't care, if he’s being honest, but he figures he should write down a few notes because he knows he's going to be asked to write a paper on it sooner or later.

 

 _Do all things nicely. :)_ is all he manages. He then erases it. Can't relate.

 

“I've heard this one three times before,” Vernon whispers.

 

“Oh my God,” Minghao whispers back.

 

“How dare you!” Vernon whisper-gasps. “We are in the house of the Lord!”

 

"Why do you do this?" Minghao asks. Some teacher’s pet shushes him from a few pews ahead.

 

“I do this,” Vernon whispers, extra quiet, “because there's absolutely nothing else to do in this fucking town. Isn't that funny? This is your life… for the next three years.”

 

“What,” Minghao whispers. “You're totally right.”

 

The two of them are shushed again. Minghao looks around briefly to see if any professors are stalking around. Not this morning. Thank God. He is fucking out of here.

  
“Let's go,” Minghao says.

 

“Huh? But—“

 

“You are fucking ridiculous. You're not even obligated to be here. Let's _go._ ” Minghao shoves his notebook in his backpack. The two of them slide out of the pew and tiptoe out to the foyer. Minghao grabs a loose program as proof of his attendance and runs out the door, not about to spend another second in there.

 

“Did you know,” Vernon says, following him slowly, because it doesn’t matter to him if they caught or not, “that the actual name for the entrance way to a church is a narthex?” he asks.

 

Minghao lets out a deep, heaving, pained sigh.

 

“Hey, you totally asked for this! When you decided to transfer to a Christian school! You better know what a narthex is, dude!”

 

“My Christ-like education has nothing to do with knowing what a narthex is! Listen. I don’t have class today. Let’s just… do something? Like, anything, literally.”

 

“Hmmm…” Vernon taps his finger to his chin. “We could drive around? We could go through a drive-thru… We could smoke weed in my truck. We could go look at cows in a field.”

 

“No,” Minghao weeps. “No, there’s nothing! There’s really nothing!”

 

“That’s damn fucking right,” Vernon says. “My truck is parked behind the church, let’s just… drive somewhere. Okay? Doesn’t matter where. All roads lead back to the school anyway.”

 

Minghao wonders where the fuck Vernon gets off, linking their arms together, dragging him along like he’s calling the shots here. And talking to him. Spending time with him. Regarding his existence. All of that. The fucking nerve of this guy, Minghao thinks.

 

He must admit, though. It’s nice to not be alone.

 

 

 

 

“I don’t hate this place,” Minghao says. “I mean a part of me does. But that’s just because I’m stuck here and it will never really be my home. Since I wasn’t born here. I understand a lot of people probably love it here. What about you?”

 

Vernon looks perplexed, like no one’s ever asked him that question before. It’s probably not a very popular topic among people are stuck with no opportunity to ever get out. The resilience is in never thinking that things could be bigger and better somewhere else.

 

“I’ve lived here since I was a baby,” Vernon says. “My parents still live here, too, but… I don’t talk to them about much.” They went from one church to another, only this one is a dilapidated mess of dry rot and disrepair, nestled back in the countryside. The kind of place you have to really try to find.  Minghao’s learning that Vernon knows all about these kinds of places. “They just do their own thing. Dad’s on welfare, ‘cause he’s got a bad back. Mom’s always working, working, and working… When she comes home, she just wants to stare at her phone and I don’t blame her. She plays these Facebook games. The kind you can pay real money for. I think it’s fine. Everyone has that one thing.”

 

Minghao doesn’t really know what to say. He can’t commiserate, knowing the esteem with which his well-to-do parents, both educated, both doctors, sent him off to college. Proud of him for the bootstraps and all that shit, terrified that one day he’s going to turn around and ask them for money. Or any type of support.

 

They don’t answer his calls so much anymore. His dad says it’s better for him that way, that he’s going to have to learn to make his way eventually. One day they aren’t going to be there to help him make stupid, mundane decisions. Or remind him how to cook his favorite food. Or talk to him in the dead of night when he can’t sleep.

 

“My parents,” he says, slowly, “don’t talk to each other much nowadays. But they talk to me. When I’m home. Or they talk at me? You know.”

 

“Yeah,” Vernon says. The thing about Vernon, Minghao is learning, is he really means everything he says. He really listens, and he really means it. “I know, buddy. I know.”

 

Minghao lets himself become comfortable. He reclines the passenger seat and curls up the way he does when he wants to nap. He figures he should say something like, _you’re the only person who has ever seen me like this_ or _I’m thinking we’re spending too much time around each other lately, since I feel like I sort of like you, but that’s only because you’re the only person who talks to me_ but it’s not the time or the place. He pulls his sweater up over his nose, for maximum emotional comfort.

 

“You’re like a baby,” Vernon laughs. It’s gentle. It sounds weird coming from him.

 

“Yeah,” Minghao says. Then he has these stupid tears in his eyes, and he can’t really place why.

 

 

 

 

“Vernon,” Minghao says. “I told you. I have midterms to study for.”

 

“Oh come oooon,” Vernon whines, his mouth so close to his phone that he mostly just sounds like a whirlwind of static. “You’ve been doing nothing but studying, like, all week!”

 

“Right,” Minghao says. “Because I’m in college. Because I attend this school, unlike you.”

 

“I’m already outside your dorm,” Vernon says. “I drove all the way here, just for you.”

 

“It’s like a four minute drive from your apartment to my dorm! I don’t care. Go home. I’m studying.”

 

“But… Miiinghaaaooo...”

 

Honestly, Minghao isn’t studying anymore. He’s been playing games on his DS for the last hour. He peeks through the blinds and sees that Vernon is absolutely telling the truth. There he is, hazards on, standing in the bed of his truck and staring at the window of Minghao’s dorm room like a lost puppy.

 

“Okay,” Minghao says. “But I won’t like it.” He ends the call and digs a dirty sweater out of his hamper – it’s been a long week. No time for laundry. No time for anything but imminent doom and gloom. If only Vernon knew. Before he leaves his dorm, he checks his bank account just to make sure he can afford to exist. His parents have transferred him a whopping twenty bucks. He’ll make that last for the rest of the semester, he swears.

 

“Here’s what’s going on,” Vernon yells, because he just can’t wait two minutes for Minghao to actually get in his truck, “Soccer game?”

 

“I don’t like soccer!”

 

“You’re just being grouchy.”

 

“No shit I’m grouchy! I feel like I’ve slept two hours in the last three days. I’m exhausted. And I’m hungry. But my parents gave me some money, so please take me to Taco Bell.”

 

“Of course, my liege,” Vernon says, and Minghao elbows him in the side. Old Faithful rattles into gear and Vernon circles behind the dorm, taking one of the many makeshift shortcuts out of campus that students use to evade campus security late at night.

 

“I’m probably going to do fine,” Minghao says.

 

“Sure you are. You’re, like… the smartest person I know. I mean, the bar’s not incredibly high. But you’re definitely the smartest.”

 

Minghao thinks that’s stupid. It’s stupid when Vernon says things like that. It’s stupid that Vernon believes in him so much, when he struggles to believe in himself.

 

“Vernon,” he blurts out, like, fuck! Now he absolutely has to finish that thought.

 

“Hmm? What?” Vernon laughs. “You look so stupid when you have something you really want to say. Like… constipated.”

 

“Don’t you wish you could leave? Don’t you ever just… want to get out of here?”

 

Vernon taps his finger against the steering well. Observes the stop sign in front of them. Sits there for a while, just because he can. Because no one’s driving around too much this time of day when everyone’s camped out in their rooms, studying their asses off.

 

“Sure,” he says finally. “Sure I do. Sometimes. But what would I do? I have nothing.”

 

“Nothing?” Minghao repeats, and that weird crack in his voice that only forms when he’s starting to get really upset makes itself evident in the ugliest way. “You’re really smart, Vernon.”

 

“Am I?”

 

“Dropping out of community college doesn’t mean anything. You could be doing what I’m doing right now. It’d be no problem for you… You just have to apply yourself, and—”

 

“Is this how your parents talk to you?” Vernon asks. He’s not mad. He’s smiling, despite everything.

 

Minghao chuckles nervously and sighs. “Yeah. They’re always talking about shit like that. Working hard. Dedication. I don’t even care. But… I guess I understand. What it feels like to look at someone and see the entire world. And feel like they’re just not doing anything with that.”

  
“Is that how you feel when you look at me?”

 

“I guess,” Minghao admits, because what’s the point in lying? That is absolutely how he feels when he looks at Vernon. The mud caked on his boots. The loose threads sticking out of his old thrift store coat. The entire world is stored away in mountains of untapped potential, spending most days next to Minghao in a busted up truck that really needs an oil change.

 

They make the silent, mutual decision to leave it at that.

 

 

 

 

One bombed midterm later and Minghao is crying in the bed of Vernon’s truck. Not really crying, just whining nearly to the point of hysteria and then forcing himself to throw up that emotional wall he’s been so diligently constructing since he was a child. He will not cry. Especially not over something so stupid.

 

“If it’s important to you, it’s not stupid,” Vernon says.

 

They’re parked behind the cafeteria. Minghao has gotten pretty good at sneaking turkey wraps and cookies out. It’s the only way he can afford to feed both himself and Vernon under these circumstances.

 

“I should get a job, huh?” he asks.

 

“Definitely not,” Vernon says. “You want to end up staying here for much longer than you intend? Then get a job. Be my fucking guest. I’m telling you. I’ve seen it happen before.”

 

“But I have no moneeey,” Minghao whines, thrashing around. He grabs the last cookie out of the front of his hoodie and breaks in half. The bigger half is always for Vernon.

 

“It’s fine like this, as far as I’m concerned,” Vernon says. “I’m used to it, anyway.”

 

“Yeah? You must think I’m some spoiled brat.”

 

“Kind of.”

 

“Just some naïve, privileged dick from a moderately big town with, like, a movie theatre. And shit. Like some dumbass who doesn’t know anything about life.”

 

“Yeah. All that sounds about right. But I still love you,” Vernon says.

 

Minghao finds himself wishing in that moment that life had a pause button. And that he could make liberal use of that pause button at this exact time. That he could pause, and rewind, and hear those words over and over again. But I still love you. But I still love you.

 

“Yeah?” Minghao says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

 

Vernon looks at him all confused, like he doesn’t know why Minghao would question him on this. “Yeah. And isn’t that good enough? Isn’t that what we’re all after? To love and be loved, and shit like that?”

 

He’s probably right. That’s another one of Vernon’s things – he’s usually right about everything. Compared to Minghao, who possesses the stunning ability to be wrong about a lot of shit. “Vernon,” he says.

 

“What? You have that weird look on your face. You know. The constipated look.”

 

“I’m sure I do. It’s not stupid if I say… that I love you, too? Right?”

 

“You do have a history of saying stupid shit, Minghao, but I can say with confidence that that is absolutely not stupid. Cool, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” Minghao says quietly. “Cool.”

 

Here’s the part where the overthinking kicks in. The uncertain future. Leaving Vernon alone at Christmas break. Graduating one day and Vernon’s too guilt-ridden to tear himself away from his parents, even though they’d probably be content never seeing him again. He already has an idea of what Vernon would say. Just enjoy this moment. Take it one day at a time. Look on the bright side. He’s pretty simple like that, sometimes.

 

Vernon would definitely say that Minghao needs to focus on what matters. Prioritize the happier things. And what seems to matter the most right now is loving and being loved, and shit like that. Eating pilfered cookies in the back of Vernon's truck. Knowing that the evening holds nothing but driving around looking at the same shit they're always looking at. And the fussy details will be saved for another day.


End file.
